Home prices in San Diego up 8% since October of last year

SAN DIEGO (CNS) - Home prices in San Diego were flat between September and October, but are up 8.1 percent since October of last year, according to the Standard & Poor's CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Indices released Tuesday.

Prices in only two of the 20 large real estate markets covered in the indices rose faster over the past year.

The indices were created by taking the cost of housing in the 20 cities in January 2000, assigning them a value of 100, and tracking their subsequent rise and fall.

In October, San Diego stood at 246.66, representing well over a doubling of values in almost 18 years. The rise during that period is the third- fastest in the U.S., behind Los Angeles and San Francisco.

S&P's 20-city index as a whole was at 203.84 in October, 0.2 percent higher than September and 6.4 percent above October 2016.

David Blitzer, the managing director and chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said the increases were driven by low inventories and increasing sales. He noted that the yearly price hike in the national index was three times the inflation rate.

"Underlying the rising prices for both new and existing homes are low interest rates, low unemployment and continuing economic growth," Blitzer said. "Some of these favorable factors may shift in 2018. The (Federal Reserve) is widely expected to raise the Fed funds rate three more times to reach 2 percent by the end of the new year."

With prices also rising higher than wages, some prospective buyers could be compelled to consider renting, with recent data showing that's already happening in West Coast cities, he said.